For those who didn’t live through it, the Summer of Love in the Haight-Ashbury evokes thoughts of peace, sunny days and love children with flowers in their hair.

But for the police, the government officials and the participants themselves, it was also a time of fear, confusion and near-constant miscommunication. According to your local newsstand, 1967 wasn’t a feel-good time that would shape the city’s future. It was a crisis and an invasion.

“Hippies are no asset to the community,” San Francisco Police Chief Thomas J. Cahill told assembled press in March. “There has been enough glamourization given to hippies. These people do not have the courage to face the reality of life. … Nobody should let their young children take part in this hippie thing.”

The Chronicle was a more conservative newspaper in 1967, for a more conservative-leaning San Francisco. The editor at the time, Scott Newhall, demanded a giant, all-caps, we’re-going-to-war headline on the top of every front page, even if it was a hippie-themed lifestyle piece.

And the city leaders, especially at the top of the police chain, were down on the cultural changes even before 1967. A Muni commissioner convinced the city to reroute two bus lines around the Haight to avoid “this wild movement akin to Sodom of biblical days.” San Francisco supervisors passed a resolution declaring hippies unwelcome.

But media coverage of the Summer of Love wasn’t all negative. The Chronicle featured thoughtful interviews with figures including poet Allen Ginsberg. Science writer David Perlman (still a Chronicle reporter in 2017 at age 98) wrote an inspiring profile of the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic.

Hippies called a press conference to protest a ban on dance permits and electronic music in September 1967. Spokespeople included (l to r) Richard Webster, George Darling, Rev. Leon Harris, Dr. Leonard Wolf and Solomon Akins Ron Thelin (rear). less

Hippies called a press conference to protest a ban on dance permits and electronic music in September 1967. Spokespeople included (l to r) Richard Webster, George Darling, Rev. Leon Harris, Dr. Leonard Wolf ... more

Photo: Photographer Unknown, The Chronicle

For the establishment, ‘this hippie thing’ was hard to embrace

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The Chronicle reported on pro-hippie news conferences hosted by local ministers and members of the counterculture. Columnists including music critic Ralph J. Gleason and socialite Merla Zellerbach were sympathetic to the scene, following negative front page stories with positive words about the culture and its importance.

But the understanding words were overwhelmed by those screaming headlines, with titles including “HIPPIE DRUG MURDER — SYNDICATE MOVE IN.” I n May 1967, hippie stories — most with a negative or fear-mongering spin — ran on the front page for six days straight.

“The love-seeking hippies of the Haight-Ashbury district could become the hate-filled Gestapo of America’s tomorrow,” one early 1967 front page story in The Chronicle began, interviewing psychiatrists about the free-love phenomenon.

A family of tourists driving down Haight Street viewing the hippies in June 1967.

A family of tourists driving down Haight Street viewing the hippies...

Soon, national publications were weighing in. Time magazine’s “The Hippies” cover added to the romance of the scene. Out-of-town newspapers were sending correspondents — the Cleveland Plain Dealer sent a reporter to find runaways from Ohio.

Corporate suits began to weasel into the scene as well. Two Hollywood studios rushed production of poorly made hippie movies, both shot in the Haight-Ashbury. The Gray Line tour bus company added a “Hippie Tour” of the Haight.

By late spring, as crowds in the Haight swelled, even the counterculture leaders seemed sick of it all. Many predicted a bad scene was coming.

“Without official help, they say, the ‘Summer of Love’ will become a summer nightmare,” a Chronicle story on May 20, 1967, began, “an open invitation to hunger and no place to stay, and violence.”

And that’s pretty much what happened.

The Chronicle’s coverage shows what many who lived through the era have confirmed in more recent interviews: While early events including the Jan. 14, 1967, Human Be-In were lovely, the summer of 1967 was a mess. Police enforced tough vagrancy laws, while the counterculture leadership begged the cops to bust a growing criminal element that was targeting hippies with more serious crimes.

There weren’t enough resources, and even less patience. By June 23, 1967, just two days into summer, officials reported that the end was near.

Summer of Love

Scott McKenzie’s musical Summer of Love invitation, “San Francisco,” asked immigrants to wear “flowers in your hair,” but the song neglected to mention that in the city, one must also wear layers.

“Some of them are leaving the same day they get here,” SFPD Capt. Dan Kiely of Park Station, whose precinct included the Haight-Ashbury, told T he Chronicle. “It’s too cold to sleep out in San Francisco. These kids expect a different sort of summer weather. So they move on.”

By the time narcotics officers raided the Grateful Dead’s Haight-Ashbury home in October, street crime had spiked and police sweeps had killed the vibe. By the time the “Death of Hippie” celebration took place atop Buena Vista Park on Oct. 6, many of the movement’s leaders had moved to Marin, Woodside or points farther north or south.

But some of the changes they were seeking continued even after they were gone. More liberal politicians , including John L. Burton and Willie Brown , would represent San Francisco at the state level, and years later Ella Hill Hutch, Carol Ruth Silver, Harvey Milk and Harry Britt would lead a progressive B oard of S upervisors.

The Chronicle would change as well, hiring new writers and editors who embraced cultural change. In 1970, the paper ran an editorial in favor of same-sex marriage.